Bad Dreams
by karebear
Summary: Meredith knows they're not "just dreams," and she can't make them go away.


Title: Bad Dreams  
Author: karebear  
Rating: K+  
Characters: Meredith (and family)  
Standard Disclaimer (Dragon Age): I don't own these characters or the world they inhabit. Bioware built the sandbox. I just play in it.  
Summary: Meredith knows they're not "just dreams," and she can't make them go away.

* * *

"Meri, I can't sleep."

"I know. Hush, Amelia. It's alright. They're just dreams."

The little girl huddles close against her big sister's chest, wrapped tight in Meredith's arms. She trembles and draws in a desperate breath. "They're _not_, though. I _know_ they aren't. Meri, they_ talk to me_. I can't make them be quiet!"

Meredith frowns, unsure of what to say. She doesn't sleep through the night anymore, not since the baby sister she shares the bed with fights terrible nightmares, thrashing and screaming until Meredith holds her gently, calming her before she can wake their parents across the room.

She's heard them arguing, hissing whispers full of tension and fear and anger. She knows Father is _mad_ at Amelia, but she's just a little kid; it's not her fault that she gets scared so easily. Mother always talks to him, in that tone that Meredith has already learned there is no arguing with, until he sighs and storms off. To work, out on the docks, or to the taverns to get drunk. And Amelia curls up in a ball with her thumb in her mouth, making her look far younger than her actual age: nearly eight. She eventually falls asleep again, though Meredith doesn't.

She slips out of bed and hastily pulls on whatever clothes are nearest; she doesn't have many to choose from anyway, and she hardly cares how she looks. Mother joins her in their small kitchen, and they work without speaking to put breakfast on the table. There's not enough food to fill them up. There never is, and Meredith wonders if that's why Daddy's always talking about "sending the girl away."

She punches out the dough to make their bread, smashing all of her frustrations and worries into it. Her mother gives her a tired smile from across the table, but Meredith doesn't smile back. She's sick of pretending everything is okay in their family. She's sick of being tired, and she's sick of her little sister being scared. She pulls a heavy coat on over her clothes and goes outside, without bothering to finish the bread. And she wanders through the Kirkwall streets, climbing carefully up to the roofs of Lowtown's stacked-together hovels to watch the sunrise glinting off the white stone of Hightown's rich estates, with the Chantry spires rising above it all. Her stomach growls at her and exhaustion sends fuzzy spikes through her brain, but she ignores them.

She returns home at midday to find Amelia laughing with Father, sharing candies, and she smiles, knowing that he would never give up his daughter no matter what he says in the dark middle of the night. He glances up and waves her over, eyes sparkling, and Meredith returns his enthusiasm with a shy smile, joining their play even though she knows she's too old for such childish games. The candy is sticky and sweet and fills her belly more than an entire loaf of bread ever could.

Amelia nuzzles against her as the sun sets, slowly darkening the summer night, afraid to close her eyes. "Meri, should I talk to them? The voices? Maybe if I ask them what they want..."

"Maybe," Meredith replies soothingly. "Just go to sleep, baby girl. I'm right here."

Amelia nods and lets her eyes drift closed, and Meredith sleeps with her arm draped protectively over the younger girl.

Screaming wakes her, along with the bright rays of morning sun - for the first time in weeks.

A monster with Amelia's skin thunders through their tiny home, ripping through the heavy thickness of the air, the crushing tension that has smothered their family for too many nights. It laughs, a bone-chilling grinding that sounds like nothing human.

Meredith scrambles behind the bed, bites her lower lip until it bleeds, shakes as the nightmare-made-real assaults everything around her. Scents of charred meat and the heat of licking fire roar around her, blood - her _mother's_ blood - runs in rivers across the familiar grooves in the floor, settling in pools around her. Nausea swirls in her stomach and she feels light-headed, her eyes drift closed as her body rebels against reality, but she forces herself to snap them open. She cannot close her eyes or she is lost. She huddles in a tight ball, her back smashed painfully against the wall, and she waits, and prays, and begs for the nightmare to stop.

They find her, dazed and covered in blood that isn't hers, huddling in the wreckage a day or two later. She blinks in the harsh, cold sunlight, and follows silently behind the heavy, clanking footsteps of men in armor. They shove her, stumbling, into the Chantry, where a severe-looking woman purses her lips and looks her over as though inspecting a moldy piece of fruit in the market. She grabs Meredith's arm with bony fingers and drags her to a room crammed full of identical bunks, sterile and unnaturally tidy, devoid of all warmth.

This room is always too quiet, even full of sleeping children, shifting and breathing, muttering softly before falling silent again. There are no stories or dreams here, no whispers or questions.

Meredith lays awake, alone and cold in her tiny bed, the same as all the others. She flips over onto her stomach and pulls the thin pillow tight over her head, squeezing her eyes shut, mumbling silent prayers that will never be loud enough to drown out the screaming.


End file.
